THE Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Senator Sonny Angara, rendered a committee report Tuesday endorsing approval of a comprehensive measure to institutionalize and harmonize all initiatives advocating a “Tatak Pinoy” or “Proudly Filipino” to push the economy, improve lives and enhance the national branding for key sectors.
Among those joining Angara in pushing the measure were Senate President Pro Tempore Loren Legarda, Majority Leader Joel Villanueva, and Senators Francis Tolentino, Nancy Binay, Jinggoy Estrada and Mark Villar as co-authors.
The measure mandates the funding, implementation, monitoring, and evaluation of a comprehensive and multiyear program called “Tatak Pinoy, also known as “Proudly Filipino.”
The “Tatak Pinoy (Proudly Filipino) bill declares it the policy of the State “to encourage, support, and promote the production and offering of Philippine products and services of increasing diversity, sophistication, and quality by domestic enterprises that are globally competitive.”
In collaboration with the private sector, the State shall, under the Angara-led bill, “continuously support domestic enterprises in producing and offering products and services of increasing sophistication, taking into consideration sustainable production practices and the use and adoption of green technologies.”
The State shall also encourage the continuous improvement, expansion, and diversification of the productive capabilities of domestic enterprises and their linkages with local, regional, and global value chains; shall ensure that its initiatives to support domestic enterprises are market-driven or are in anticipation of future market demand; and shall identify business models, business sectors, market segments, and product opportunities for domestic enterprises to target and gain comparative advantage in.
In endorsing the committee report, Angara cited at length studies explaining the origins of the progress made by countries that seriously, consistently adopted “buy local” programs and supported national branding strategies that cut across various economic sectors.